Gidday all. I’ve seem to have slipped into a “once a week” kind of blogger. Oh well. Winter is on its way and soon there will be actual MMOs to talk about. Oh…right…DCUO rained on that little parade. /grumble.

Allllll righty then. If other MMOs aren’t going to play ball, then WoW certainly will. First up is that patch 4.01 is dropping right now and will be thrown out to the “We will never be satisfied” MMO masses. Check out the patch notes here. Of course, this is the patch that paves the way for Cataclysm. It introduces sweeping new changes to character development as well as many class and game mechanic changes. Yes…the long awaited WoW reset button is about to be pushed again, but this one smells a bit different than the last. I’m very curious as to how extensive the changes are going to be to the world. I’m planning on starting a new character and what I’m really hoping is that Cataclysm reinvigorates the whole experience for me. We’ll see.

Next up is a great article over at Massively which takes a look at why WoW is the whipping boy for the current state of the industry:

If you ask a remarkably high number of players, World of Warcraft is a negative influence on the face of MMOs. Not necessarily for the reasons that many players, current and former, will claim; the complaints of this group have nothing to do with content or overarching design philosophy. No, World of Warcraft has ruined things just by virtue of its very existence.

It’s WoW’s fault that we’ve seen a flood of games that are, essentially, the same game with a slight twist (WoW in space, WoW with more PvP, WoW in the mind of Derek Smart, and so forth). It’s WoW’s fault that these games have failed, and it’s even more WoW’s fault when other games fail. And despite everything, these claims aren’t seen as ridiculous. They’re often taken very seriously. But really, WoW isn’t to blame for its clones or the failures of other games. The fault for those lies exactly where logic would imply.

It’s a great article and I recommend you give it a thorough read through.

Here’s my two cents. Blaming WoW for the failure of other games and even the state of the current industry is the typical North American attitude that drives me crazy: my failure is always someone else’s fault. All WoW is responsible for is WoW. The shifting of blame clearly takes away the pain necessary to learn from one’s mistakes. The lesson being, of course, that lightning never strikes the same place twice. Sure, WoW has had a tremendous influence on gaming, but that influence is hardly a call to action that says “spend hundreds of millions and create that again…”. Imitation is the best form of flattery, but in gaming, repetition is a sign of a spent and exhausted imagination, and that’s where we’re at now. A tired, spent and exhausted MMO industry that is trying the same things over and over and really not getting anywhere. Oh wait…there’s Facebook…maybe that can save us! Not…bloody….likely.

Really, the whole industry needs to scale down in a very big way. It’s gotten to the point where creating games requires the GDP of a small country in order to create. This is why MMO luminaries are looking to shitty and “What have you done for me lately” platforms like Facebook….they’re cheap and require little or no effort to create. Of course, the old tech adage of “garbage in, garbage out” comes into play and then they’re sitting there wondering what bus just hit them. No fellas. It’s not the tech that is killing you here, it’s your expectations.

WoW has affected a lot of other games, but not in the way most people think. WoW didn’t make Warhammer Online stumble, for example. (Although, perhaps the game would have had more interesting gameplay if it weren’t so WoW-like, but that’s still at the feet of the people running the show when it was made.)

But, WoW has restricted the types of games that you can make. I’ve talked to some investors over the past few years about projects. Quite frankly, they wanted a WoW clone that could promise them big profits. (Of course, now they want you to do social games and become the next Zynga since that’s the current fashion.) The problem is that WoW was such a runaway success that it blinded some people into thinking that was the only way to make a successful MMO.

In the end, there were probably a fair number of really cool games that didn’t get made because investors looked at WoW and only wanted a slice of that pie rather than trying something “risky” and new.

^^ right on brother, you go girl, power to the people, up the revolution… etc etc…

This is the exact problem going on… people are throwing money at people… “Go make me a wow” then too many months later “Holy Shit this is expensive”.

And so they end up releasing too soon (a common problem nothing specific to MMO’s) they end up not releasing “polished product”, they basically miss the chance to win and keep any of us MMO players/WoW Addicts clear of the evil that is Blizzard’s speciality.

“It’s gotten to the point where creating games requires the GDP of a small country in order to create.”

^^ Quite so, however, has anyone ever stepped back and thought about that? I’d love to see a good MMO engine/game released, and the modding community take over >:).

That’s how solid classics like Team Fortress came about… time I say we see that innovation in an MMO. [I know about all the issued that’d cause with balance and ESRB ratings and all the rest of it, it’s just my neat idea for the next ten years; and I’ll keep bringing it up awkwardly at every cocktail party I’m invited to].